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Nintendo Direct 3/3/2016 Rundown

Hot off the presses from the Pokémon Direct earlier in the week, Nintendo just released a whole new, very meaty, direct dedicated to Wii U and 3DS games planned to release this year. But did it deliver?

Things kicked off big with showing of the final build of Star Fox Zero, which now includes local co-op play, with one flying and one shooting (think Cartoon Network’s Swat Kats). First run copies will also include a free copy of Star Fox Guard (formally Project Guard), a tower defense game involving robot invaders and fending off your base with assistance from Slippy’s uncle Grippy.

After a brief look at upcoming Splatoon balance and weapon remodding updates, and Team Mario & Team Sonic going toe-to-toe in rugby in Mario & Sonic in Rio 2016, we were treated to new updates for Super Mario Maker, adding in keys and locked doors, level sorting options, and new mystery mushrooms to collect. The SMT x FE crossover RPG, now titled Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE, is now planning to come stateside on June 24th, without a dubbed audio track. Bandai Namco’s Wii U F2P game Lost Reavers was finally shown off, involving four players as they team up through dungeons in search of treasure while fighting off zombie mummies and weird monsters. Game will be out on April 28th, with an open beta on the 14th.

Touted as an action/adventure game rather than a traditional turn based RPG like previous entries, Paper Mario Color Splash was officially announced for Wii U, pushing Paper Mario to restore color to a newfound island. We got new footage of super impending releases, Pokkén Tournament and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD, and a reconfirmation of Club Nintendo spiritual successor, My Nintendo, all hitting this month. Multiple amiibo ventures are en route with Mini-Mario & Friends amiibo Challenge and the Animal Crossing Series 4 Cards.

It was then announced that SNES VC games will soon be coming exclusively to New Nintendo 3DS, launching with Pilotwings, Super Mario World, and F-Zero this week, and many more titles to follow down the line. Game Freak took it upon themselves to combine horse racing in solitaire in Pocket Card Jockey. Because no one saw that coming. After detailing upcoming DLC for Fire Emblem Fates and the upcoming Hyrule Warriors Legends, we got a March 10th release for the Bravely Second: End Layer demo, which will allow you to transfer bonuses to the main game come April 15th. We’ll see the summer full adventure with releases of Dragon Quest VII and Monster Hunter Generations (formerly Monster Hunter X), followed by a full rundown of the still-existing Metroid Prime: Federation Force.

To close off, we got first footage of Rhythm Heaven Megamix, which is both a new entry and an anthology of the series’ best levels and songs, and Kirby Planet Robobot, which provide a mech for Kirby to ride in (you read that right) and multiplayer with light RPG mechanics.

Nintendo seemed to be very focused on games in the immediate future with this direct, evident by the lack of talk about mobile, NX, or Zelda U at all. A fair move though, showing that they want to keep their current customers very happy as things are changing within the company. It’s exciting to see titles like #FE and Rhythm Heaven coming so soon, and the SNES VC support took us for a huge surprise. We’ll have to wait until E3 to see what Nintendo has in store for us after June.